Going around that same circle, over and over...

My good friend Jenny and I went to Puerto Rico a month or so ago for a business conference. I am so busy, I didn’t even know about the Zika situation down there being so bad until a couple days before we left.  I contacted Jenny and we both decided to go ahead.  We get down there, and the first day we are there, you don’t even see a bug in the air – just gorgeous, beautiful place.  We decided to take a walk before going in for the night and just eat out on the patio of the hotel.  By the time we arrive to the restaurant, we were sweaty and gross, and it was getting dusk.  We had sprayed with Off, and Jenny even had this little thing of Off that you hang around your neck and it is supposed to put the spray into the air all around you.  We sit down at this outdoor table, order our food, and then is when we see the mosquitoes. 

They were EVERYWHERE!  On our table, lighting on our arms, in the air – not like a swarm, but not like just a couple.  We weren’t feeling like we were getting bit, but we were getting nervous and wanted our food and to get inside.  I take Jenny’s little Off necklace thing, and I put it right overtop of one of the mosquitoes on the table, and it does not affect it one bit!  It didn’t paralyze it, slow it down, repel it away – NOTHING!  We finally get our food and just take it up to our rooms to get away from the bugs.  The whole rest of the trip, we just made sure we were in by dusk and we were fine.
 
The next day, we decided to take our rental car back.  By the time we paid for it, they added on so many service fees and all this junk that the price went up by 45%!  Everyone who was picking up a car was having a fit, and I almost just didn’t pick it up, but we had four days of no seminars to enjoy the island and we thought we’d want it.  Then we get to the hotel, and the parking for the car was another $26.00 a day, so by morning, we had seen what a gorgeous place we were in, decided when we might need the car or not, and it was decided to go do out sightseeing that required the car and then return it that evening.  We go downtown to Old San Juan, piddle around the shops and restaurants there, eat something, then set the GPS for the Dollar Rent-A-Car and head out.  We drive and drive, and we aren’t seeing the place. 
 
We seem to be going around and around the same circle, and that circle was right near our hotel, which we knew was not the rental place, as it was near the airport.  It is getting dark, and I can hardly see, and we finally see the Dollar sign.  It is on the opposite side of the road on what appeared to be a one-way street, and we couldn’t figure out how to get there.  So we drive around and around and around the same area about another half hour, trying to get across streets to get to this place.  But the whole time, we’re saying, “This cannot be it – it’s nowhere near where we picked it up!”  We finally got close enough to it to see that it’s not the pick-up site – it may not even be a drop-off site, but possibly a graveyard for bad cars.
 
By then, we have driven these same streets over and over and over, trying to get to a different place.  We search on the internet for the correct address and cannot find one.  We look for a phone number and call it, and that doesn’t take us anywhere either.  The first few times around the circle, it was funny.  By the last few, we were exhausted and it wasn’t funny any more.
 
One of us finally says, “Let’s just go back to the airport and sit there and wait on the Dollar van to come and just follow it to the pick-up site!”  So we put the airport in the GPS, and off we go.  We’re miles away from the airport, so that’s another 20 minutes.  We finally get there, and we have to wait and wait and wait.  We see all kind of rental car vans, but no Dollar.  We’re about to go inside and see if we can catch an address off of a billboard or something, and here comes the van!  We jump out, tell the driver that we’re lost and need to follow him.  He’s very nice, seems to understand what I was wanting, but if he did, he sure thought we could keep up with a race car!
 
In the end, we FINALLY made it to our destination and got that car turned in.  Then, of course, we had to get a taxi back to our hotel, and that required another wait.  As we were heading back, I said, “Boy, this was an adventure – I need to make up a story about it!”  Jenny gave me her thoughts on it the next day, and it was also what I had concluded:  If you’re going around and around and around the same issues in your life, the same problems, the same destinations, and you are getting nowhere, you need to just start over and go back to the source.  I have heard many people say, “I really need to get back in church,” and I wonder if they have mistakenly concluded that going to church means you’re back in a right relationship with God.  Church would be the airport; but to get right with God, you’ve got to follow the van, as that is what’s going to really get you to the right place.  You’ve got to seek Jesus, quit playing with and swatting those bugs you are hanging out with, that only seek to poison you. 
 
Sometimes GPS can be like the devil, taking you close enough to where you want to go that you think you’re making progress, but all you’re doing is wasting time.  Albert Einstein says the definition of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  There are five awakenings that usually begin the process of coming back to God.  Are you LONGING for something else?  You know there’s got to be more?  Are you filled with REGRET?  Wish you had done things differently?  Have you reached the end of your rope and realize you need HELP?  Are you searching for a true LOVE, one that never dies and never gives up on you?  Do you really want to have a full and complete LIFE, not just an existence?  I urge you, quit driving around these same old places and seek the source of it all, the originator of the GPS, the One that will lead you home.